The Inside
by sydedalus
Summary: House tries to unravel a case that's haunting him while dealing with his own sudden medical problem. Medical realism, HW established relationship. Knowledge of a prior fic, Judging Distance, is necessary. See my profile. Complete.
1. I Wake to Sleep

**Title:** The Inside  
**Author:** sy dedalus  
**Pairing:** House/Wilson established relationship  
**Rating:** T for suggested adult content  
**Spoilers:** none  
**Summary:** This story picks up where another of mine, Judging Distance, leaves off, this time taking House's perspective. Knowledge of the prior fic is necessary; this one won't make any sense otherwise. Warning: first attempt at writing first-person.

**Disclaimer:** Characters don't belong to me, etc.

The technique for this fic will be stream-of-consciousness. It's highly associative and thus often confusing. Everything House refers to has already taken place in "Judging Distance," though this fic picks up where that one left off. Quick note: House uses the word 'it' very often; 'it' sometimes means his leg. I've tried to be as clear as possible without compromising the method. Finally, the chapter title is composed of lines from Theodore Roethke's poem "The Waking."

* * *

**I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.  
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.**

When I wake up, it's sudden like it usually is, and I have to _go_. He's still under me. Asleep I presume. But bacteria will wait for no man.

He's a bony pillow, I realize as I pull myself up using the couch. Drugs have me dizzy, like falling backward without the prospect of ever landing. My hand searches for the cane but I have no idea where it is, and it doesn't matter because if I don't get up now, he's going to be cleaning up a mess.

I hop-skip to the bathroom. Probably that wakes him, but I'm not in a position to care.

No regrets. I knew after two bites that it was undercooked but I was hungry and I'd do the same thing again.

But still I hate this. I don't want it. I know he's disappointed. I know he had something planned. But some part of me feels better like this than if I were fine and we were indulging. Because we didn't get it in time. I didn't get it. I still don't know what killed that kid.

I rub my gut. Kid's dad left me a few bruises there. They make me feel better too. Just a little sore, not dead like that kid, but it's something. Wilson would call me a masochist if he knew.

Stinks. But stink is diagnostic. It's a normal stink. Means still probably _Salmonella_. Whoopee. I'm thrilled.

And the consistency, also diagnostic. Still probably _Salmonella_. Still gonna get me up again and again. For all the cramps and all the urgency, not a lot comes out each time. Even with the enema, six days is a long time to fill a long intestine.

I press my side. Hernia's still in place. He was pissed about that. But he doesn't need to know everything and I had it under control. No sense in arguing.

I clean myself and flush it to hell. Already gone through a roll and a half of toilet paper. Funny. Of all the things, he moved the t.p. first when he got here. He's a bony pillow. But I'll live. Could really use a beer, though.

Need the cane, I realize in earnest once my hands are clean. Shaking again. Dizzy. Two Vicodin finally down, finally working and I feel all of them and they feel great. It's quiet now—really quiet for the first time in hours. I can sleep more deeply now that it's quiet. But I'm weak from all the fluid loss. I've got to get somewhere other than the floor first.

Door frames, walls, quick, lop-sided steps between them. I think he's still asleep. I'll take the bed. It's closer.

He didn't move the furniture in here. He knows I have it arranged as it is for a reason.

My hands take the familiar steps.

Now that it's quiet, the nerves especially, they're always the worst—now that it's quiet, my stomach feels hollow. Wish he was up. He'd bring me a drink. I've gotta sleep some of this off first to get steady again. I can tolerate it now, need to push fluids. He'll bring it when he gets up. Sometimes he's very useful.

I go to his side of the bed. It's closer to the door. Not that it matters right now. He washed the sheets. Both sides smell the same. None of the smell of his scalp on his pillow. It's a good smell. Wish he hadn't washed them, but glad I don't have to smell my own shedded skin and sleep-sweat on my side for a while.

It's faint but I can smell him on this side. He slept here last night. Didn't make the bed today. I wrestle with the sheets—then that first sweet moment when my skeleton can rest.

I pull my knees up, helps the cramping. He could've brought something for that. He wanted it so badly this morning, and again just now. No idea what he was trying to tell me. He knew I'd feel it.

He's been very quiet today for him. Not hovering like he does. Didn't think he'd ever learn. Could be mad about the hernia. I feel my side again; it's still fine.

The couch is comfortable but the bed is better, even if I don't sleep as well in the bed. It's better on the bones. And here I can have him next to me sometimes. He's a restful sleeper, same place in the morning as he was when we go to bed. He says it doesn't bother him, the way I toss and kick. Stacy always tossed and kicked back or banished me to the couch. Maybe because he's older now. Maybe it's just who he is. The vampire, the dog.

But I know that he… Whatever that word means, love. I like him next to me. Here when I come home. Beer at night with TV. Dinner better than I can make. Sex. He's patient. I'm inconsistent. Bonnie was right. He's an attentive partner. I know I give him what he needs most of the time, but I'm not always sure when it comes to... I hope it's enough. I try but more and more it's out of my hands.

I'd be useless today with or without bacteria.

I don't want to think any more.

I'm still drug-sleepy. I close my eyes. It's enough, and I can feel it coming, the sensation of falling backward forever.


	2. Wilson's Ghost

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad the perspective works. 'It' in the beginning of this chapter is House's cane.

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**Wilson's Ghost**

I know he's been near when I wake up again, the same way I know what woke me and why. The second I know because it's become a pattern. The first because in a pre-waking moment, I could smell him. I know it as well as I know I must get up immediately.

There. Proof. As I force myself up and my legs over the side of the bed, I see it. He's left it for me. Always considerate.

I'm grateful to have it for the few strides to the bathroom, and equally grateful he's disappeared. This is disgusting. I don't want him to see me like this. No matter how many times he's seen me like this before, I never want him to see me like this again.

Like this morning. Who can't pee in a sink? A sink's a sink. Which room it's in doesn't matter. And then he sits down to stay a while. Just what I want: someone to watch while my guts fills up with water. I've had enough of that. The first days after the infarction, so much morphine, I couldn't do anything, no food in my gut to begin with, and they wouldn't let me do it by myself, no listening to the fact I know how—I don't want to remember.

I need a Vicodin. Never to think about that time again.

Why can't this come in larger amounts at longer intervals? I need to sleep. The sink wavers like a mirage. I blink. It slides back into place.

Still stinks. Still consistent. More than half of this roll is gone. I'm careful not to use too much. A clog would hurt me bad right now.

I wash up. My hands are raw. Accustomed as they are to being washed again and again at work, they're dry from the soap he put in the dispenser. Whatever it is. Smells like apples. Artificial green apples. Artificial Granny Smith apples.

I avoid my face in the mirror. I know what I look like. I have the cane for support now. Less sleepy but I don't want to walk further than the bed.

Peripherally I see him sitting on the couch as I cross the hall into the bedroom. I don't want him to come with his questions and his caring expression. But I do. I want him. I know it. Just not like that.

That plastic yellow cup, the same one all day, now it's on his table beside the bed. Full of vile green Gatorade. I asked for it.

I sip first. Slowly. It's cold down the esophagus, coating the stomach wall. I shiver. I know why. Need to push a few ounces now before I sleep again. Probably will need another shot soon. Vicodin on an empty stomach, like an unbalanced washing machine.

A belch creeps up unstoppably. Finally something that isn't vomit. I feel better. A larger sip this time.

I don't hear him coming. I don't think he'll come.

He wants to go fishing because he likes to fish. I fished some. First in Japan. John stole his father's tackle and fished after we stopped for lunch. Just hiking that time. He couldn't climb with the tackle. He fished not to eat but because he liked it and he missed it, he said. He was a better fisherman than a rock climber. No instinct for finding holds. Even after his dad found out and punished him, he still snuck the tackle out.

So he wants to go fishing because he misses it. He wants to do more together. Probably thinks if I get outside more often I'll be cured. But he wants it and when do I ever give him what he wants? I'll take a game along. Maybe a fishing game.

This stuff really is disgusting. Can't stand it since I drank too much for a hangover years ago. That was worse than this is. More violent.

Should have let him get the red flavor. Or any other flavor.

I force a burp this time. Clear the air out. About three ounces of the green nasty. That's enough.

I lie back down, smelling him and me both on the pillow. Need a shower. I can still smell latex. The subtle reek of blood. Not my blood. Maybe in a few hours. Get some fluids first, some rest. Sure to do nothing that would alarm him.

He hasn't come. He won't come.

I can sleep now. Two Vicodin on top of the fluid loss and yes, there, in the moment I surrender it comes.


	3. Portrait d'un Homme

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

See Ezra Pound's poem "Portrait d'une Femme" for the inspiration for a paragraph or two of this chapter. Re: the medicine in this chapter…it's accurate as far as I can discern. And because House isn't going to explain it in the chapter, here goes. House is talking about two antiemetics which act on two different systems in the brain (dopamine D2 and serotonin 5-HT3). Only the serotonin antagonist acts on the vagus nerve, which controls peristalsis (the muscle contractions which move food through the body) among other important things. Wilson gave House metoclopramide, a D2 antagonist which canon!House likes, in the previous chapter. See Wikipedia if you're curious about the mechanisms of action and other fun drug facts. But please bear in mind that my last encounter with anything resembling medicine was in high school and I used Wikipedia as a source…so take this with a grain of salt and call me in the morning.

This chapter contains some sexual content. Hopefully it's within the T rating. It's not explicit (I don't think).

* * *

**Portrait d'un Homme**

What wakes me this time is different. It's a wrestling match. Vicodin and Gatorade. Gatorade's losing.

I can't help the disappointment. I swallow stiffly. Thought I'd have long enough to absorb some of it first. With increased duodenal peristalsis and increased lower esophageal sphincter pressure in addition to D2 antagonistic action, metoclopramide should… But that's why he got a 5-HT3 antagonist too. Knew I'd send him back for one if the metoclopramide didn't work.

I know he's here. I can smell him cooking something. I hear him banging pots and pans. Might've heard one of those. Maybe I'd have slept longer if…

But it doesn't matter. Need the 5-HT3 antagonist now. Maybe another shot of the D2 antagonist soon too. Preventative.

I get to my feet. Sometimes I hate the vagus nerve. Such a whiny, sensitive nerve. One wrong signal and _wham_, get the sawdust.

Whatever he's cooking smells good. Spicy but sweet. Thai maybe. Coconut milk and curry. I grit my teeth against green Gatorade.

He doesn't expect me. I seat myself on the couch.

"Hey," he says.

I see the surprise, then the burial of the surprise. Then the guilt that he's cooking food settles over him just so in the eyes.

I ignore him and his guilt, and dig through the familiar crumples of a hospital pharmacy bag for the 5-HT3 antagonist.

He sees what I'm doing, my pale face and green gills. And he's next to me, smelling of coconut milk and curry, not unpleasant, as I glance at the label _ondanstron hydrochloride dihydrate 4 mL_ yes that's right, of course he knows what he's doing.

I offer my right side to him again, it already hurts, it's going to keep hurting, why not use it?, but he gives me a look and anyway he knew already: he's on my left. I show him I'm not pleased or amused but offer him the left anyway. This will take a while. He prescribes this medicine more often than any other. He knows he has to go slowly.

He sees my face; he knows he should start immediately, and he does.

"I want another ten of metoclopramide in an hour," I tell him while I hold my t-shirt and p.j.s. I sound like I've been gargling glass.

I don't pay attention to his questioning look. He knows, or he'll figure out soon, that I'm more concerned about replacing fluids than a little dizziness. He wants to ask so many questions he already knows the answers to. My hip stings. The .5 millimeter bore size is just big enough to hurt like a paper cut between two fingers. My gluteus minimus cells are all angry.

He's got the news on. CNN. He would.

I read the ticker. I don't care. I don't see the remote and he's got me motionless with a needle in my side. I read the ticker again. Recycled politics and over-hyped human interest stories. No good celebrity gossip.

I concentrate on him instead. His smell underneath the cooking smells. I don't find the smell of semen or even a hint of petroleum jelly or Astroglide. Instead the artificial Granny Smith apple scent. I'm disappointed. I know he must have done it, he needed it so badly, and I'm disappointed he cleaned up. I'd rather smell him than this overwhelming apple perfume. His deodorant, his after-shave, very faintly the soap in the shower—all present, but nothing that is really him. Even with my stomach and my curdling intestines, I want to douse him with water until only his smell is left, or make him sweat through the chemical additives and kiss just above his jaw where the stiff hairs are beginning to pierce the surface of his skin. It must be near or past five o'clock.

I like him best in the morning when he's slept away the shampoos and soaps of the day before. When he smells like who he really is. When we're both accidentally stiff. Before I start aching. It's illicit to him. He wants to brush his teeth and shave and shower first. But I want him before that. He knows it now. That's why he was waiting this morning. Still in bed. He knows that's how I like him best.

I feel good thinking these things, but I'm old and medicated, and even if I wasn't full of bacteria, I don't think I could today. After the right amount of beer, maybe then. Maybe. But too much and I can't finish and then he thinks it's his fault, though he knows better and the same thing happens to him after too much alcohol. If I can get him to twitch and twist and curl his toes, maybe feel the pulse through his urethra, on days like this, that's enough.

All those questions he has. He doesn't ask but I can feel his eyes examining me. I'm not his patient. I want to shout at him but shouting will only make him pout and think I'm hiding something. I'm not. I wonder sometimes if he sees more than a body in me. Of course he does—I don't want this body, who else would?—but he doesn't always act like it. Maybe that's why he wants to go fishing. I know him. But do I really know him?

"Where do you want to go fishing?" The words are out as I think them.

I'm awkward. I'm back in high school. I don't know how to talk to people.

I sense him taking in the awkwardness of the question, turning it over in his mind, wondering about my motives. I'm trying to know who you are. I'm bad at it. But you always wanted me to try, didn't you? You must know how hard it is.

"I…don't know," he answers. I hear the hesitation. What's he keeping back?

"I haven't thought about it."

"Because you thought I'd back out?"

I watch his face as it betrays him. Yes, it answers. In a few seconds he transitions from how'd-he-know-that to surprised-he-was-so-honest to why's-he-being-so-honest to what's-he-got-up-his-sleeve to he's-watching-me-better-concentrate-on-the-medicine.

The mask of medicine stays rigidly in place. I read the news ticker again.

Seconds of silence before his face flounders.

"Yes," he says reluctantly.

In his ethical code, honesty should be answered with honesty. His universe seems small and boring.

"You…don't like to go anywhere unless the impulse seizes you."

I tilt my head in a performance of thought. He knows he's right or he wouldn't have said it. I don't want to tell him, But you do want to go. He'll figure that out. Maybe he'll also figure out why I can't say it to him. He knew what he was getting into when we made this deeper.

Suddenly there's green Gatorade bile and the urge to expel it. I drop the hem of my shirt to clench a fist and swallow and concentrate. My stupid, stubborn stomach knows it needs this liquid. The urge again, like the ocean tide. Don't think about oceans. My teeth are a line: nothing will cross it.

Then it's gone and I can relax and breathe. He's got that look again like he's ready to leap over whatever cliff he has to in order to help me. I glance at the needle in my side to remind him to push.

He looks down. He's embarrassed that I caught him. I concentrate hard on the tip of Larry King's nose.

"I was looking at boats," he says, and now I'm surprised.

I'd rather look at him than at Larry King's nose, so I do.

He's looking at my hip. He's admitting this to me and it embarrasses him.

"Even if you didn't want to go, I've got the money and I thought, why not?"

I watch his embarrassment. He thinks he's being selfish. He isn't. He should have a life outside of me. He's never been good at that, but neither have I. He shouldn't stop trying.

"Makes sense," I mumble to reassure him that he's not being selfish, that he deserves something outside of me. I can't tell him anything else. I wonder if he knows it and knows why.

Suddenly I want to take a guitar off the wall and pick out a few notes. Something in the key of A minor. Or a twelve-bar blues.

Finally it's done and the piece of metal hurts in its absence. He presses cotton again and massages. He thinks that helps. Maybe it helps his patients, but not me, and I swat his hand.

"Thanks," I tell him. It's a growl. I'm not human, what did he expect?

It's an apology for the look he gives me when I swat his hand. He doesn't understand.

"Any time."

He makes himself busy picking up wrappers. I ask him for the remote and he goes vacant.

"Think I left it in the kitchen," he tells me and goes.

I read the ticker and stare at Larry King's nose. He brings the remote and the red bowl with the topless Spanish girl. He leaves without a word. He's learning.

I find Mythbusters and imagine the route the ondanstron travels to the brain and stomach as if thinking it will make it happen faster.

I still don't know what killed that kid.


	4. Process

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Glad you guys liked the last chapter. :)

* * *

**Process**

I stab the 'end call' button and snap the phone closed. They're useless. Wet behind the ears and not even smart enough to fear me.

He emerges from the kitchen where he's been eavesdropping. Wipes his hands with a dish towel.

"No autopsy results yet?"

He asks these rhetorical questions. He heard me yell at them; he knows. So he wants me to talk about it? Tell him about it? Because—what? That's something couples do? If we talk about it, he gets to play counselor and friend and that what, makes him feel like whatever we've got is…somehow…better…or different…or—I don't even know what.

He stands there waiting for an answer he already knows. I know my face showed nothing. I've had enough Vicodin recently.

"No underlings smart enough to check," I tell him tightly.

I don't want to talk about it. If I did, I'd bring it up. He knows that's how it works. If he wants to push it—well, I can't today and that's it. Nothing else to say.

He lingers, the towel forgotten between his hands. I see the questions he wants to ask. I could tell him everything that happened after he went home yesterday and he'd still know nothing. It's useless and a waste of my energy.

I try to communicate to him just how much I don't want to talk about it and then I've done my best and I tune back in to the TV.

I pick up the vile Gatorade and sip half a vile ounce. Disgusting as it is, it's helping. I'm not cold any longer. He added some ginger ale to the cup, too. He knows the carbonation helps. That's more than enough help from him right now. He forgets I lived here alone for so long. He forgets I'm an adult.

Ignoring him works: I see him disappear into the kitchen. I see his reluctance. I know he'll be back. But not right now, and that's all that matters.

Ignorant morons. Not that I expect the autopsy results until tomorrow morning at the earliest, but they need to learn to pressure the right people.

I stare past the TV and begin again. It doesn't matter that this kid is dead. I need to know why so I can recognize it next time.

It was probably auto-immune, probably triggered by something in his environment, definitely obscured by years of physical abuse and the psychological after-effects—how could it take them _two days_ to figure out daddy hits junior?! If they had _any sense_ of human nature and human tells, they'd have seen it _immediately_!

And I know what he'd say to me if I told him that. He'd say I shouldn't trust them to read people yet, that they're too inexperienced, that I should have seen the kid sooner.

I don't need him to tell me that. I knew it the second I saw the two of them together. And I knew barring some miracle that I was too late. It was my mistake, it cost the kid his life. There. I know. As long as they know it too, maybe it will mean something.

But they can't even breathe down someone's neck yet.

I have to get up again. I wobble and shake down the hall.

It's a blessing, this pain. Without it, he would have asked me hours ago and the mood I was in, I would've yelled. Then he'd be hurt or he'd yell back or he'd thin his lips and eyes and go silent. Worse, he knows I'm good for nothing after two days on my feet. But still he was waiting. For all he understands…

Dysautonomia. Of some kind. Bad diagnosis. If they'd taken a better history— No.

Probably postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome plus something else. No pheochromocytoma. No abnormal norepinephrine levels either, but that's not always reliable… No time for a tilt-table test, not after we—_I _discovered the abuse and Father of the Year bashed my gut and banned me from the room and from touching the kid. No time to get Cuddy or social services or do anything but try keep him stable because we—_I_ screwed up.

But the heart. _Nothing_ showed up in the labs, MRI, CT, echo, angiogram. I know something was there. I _know it_. _But what?_

He's waiting for me when I reach the couch.

"They called back," he tells me. "They _think_ they'll be able to pressure the guy starting first thing in the morning."

Even he's sarcastic. He has his arms crossed, which admittedly isn't as impressive when he's wearing a t-shirt with a terrapin on it as it is when he's in an Oxford with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and his tie loosened just so at the neck and his exasperation is directed at me—if it was, right now, and if I felt better, I know how I'd shut him up—

Crap.

He's got that look.

I can tell he's going to ask.

He was waiting for me to get comfortable so I won't want to walk out.

Don't. Don't do it, don't do it, don't—

"House—"

"I don't want to talk about it," I growl.

Now he is bordering on exasperation and this time it's directed at me, but I don't feel any better and he's not as sexy in that t-shirt.

"You still haven't figured it out?" he asks.

And if one half of his tone wasn't sympathetic, I wouldn't be so terse.

"I'd tell you."

He still wants to ask. He's _impossible_. I want to stomp to the bedroom and slam the door, but I'm cramping bad. I don't want to move.

I yell at him with my body: my jaw's out, then I set my teeth, my hands are tight around the cane's neck, each wrinkle is drawn in, massed and coiled. I'm rattling as loud as I can without being a rattle-possessing snake.

Still he stands there asking with his eyes.

"I'm serious," I say.

That's the last thing I will say. If he pushes me any more, I'm gone, even if I've got to walk like I've got a knife in my gut.

He lingers just a little longer, then he goes. He knows my will is stronger than his and that I fight dirtier than he does. That he'll feel guilty if he makes me walk out.

I sit back on the couch. I can feel my intestines unclench. The cramping eases.

I reach for a Vicodin. I need one.

I force Gatorade down after it and force myself to sit still and stay here—not to curse and pace like I want.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a bad diagnosis.


	5. The Calm of Night

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

The boys are taking longer than I thought they would to resolve their issues. I hope it's not boring. I can safely say that if this chapter is slow and sedate, the next is definitely neither of those.

* * *

**The Calm of Night**

He comes and sits next to me on the couch. I heard him start the dishwasher and wash his hands. The light is off in the kitchen. It's past eight o'clock.

TV then bed.

This is our routine.

If I'm watching something he doesn't want to watch, he'll pick up a journal and read, but he won't go anywhere. This is the hour or two before bed when we let dinner digest and play at being domestic. Sometimes it's cozy; sometimes it's stifling. Today it's neither—just a continuation of a strange, sick day.

It's still our time, though.

If I feel like it, and sometimes if I don't really feel like it but want to, I'll touch him first. He's always passive. If I haven't touched him by a certain time and he wants it, he'll touch me tentatively, asking me if I'm up to the task. Sometimes I answer yes when I'm not really up to it. Even if I don't really feel like it on the couch, once we get started and I get into it, I know I've made the right decision. I know I'll sleep better. Even if he's the only one who gets there—he knows there's plenty of pleasure other than the finale. And he knows if I can't make it at night, I'll be ready in the morning. He still feels guilty, but he's learning that I take the pleasure I can get and I'm happy to get it. And that I can wait longer now—I'm older, Vicodin makes it easy not to care—and that when it does happen, it's sweeter for the waiting.

But aside from the goodnight kiss he'll plant on my cheek later, because I won't let him kiss me on the mouth when I feel like this, we won't touch tonight.

He's okay. He got his earlier. He's relaxed next to me. He expects nothing tonight.

But three days is a long time for me, too—not as long as it is for him, but long still—and I do want to touch him. He's already satisfied—he won't need anything from me. I know he likes doing things to me. He'd probably like to. Something non-strenuous and slow would feel so good.

I let myself go, imagining him doing what I want him to do. I need to see if I can get enough blood going before I tell him with my hands and eyes what I want.

I concentrate. I've kept down enough of the nasty green that I feel human again. Vicodin's helping the cramps. I feel as good as I'm going to feel tonight.

I concentrate hard, imagining sensation, culling from memory the way he looks when he does it and other favorite moments of him I keep.

I try…

My best effort…

Nothing. I'm cooked linguine. A small and ugly Gentile.

If he's sensed my efforts, he doesn't show it.

I know from his relaxation that he's had enough of me tonight. He won't ask—not how do I feel, not what happened. He's given up until tomorrow. He's probably convinced himself that he shouldn't feel guilty for enjoying his supper, too. Good. He takes his time, but he comes around to my point of view eventually.

I begin again with the kid's symptoms. I can't do otherwise.

I'm tired. The ten minute naps I took over the late morning and noon have worn off and I'm ready to crash harder now than I was this morning. If I could have just an hour…

But the kid's symptoms float up from the darkness when I close my eyes. I know it's there. I just have to find it.

The television blurs as I think through it.

Next thing I know he's closing his journal and asking me if I want another shot before he goes to bed.

I blink. I fell asleep.

He's waiting for an answer. I tell him yes. Why not hedge my bets? And metoclopramide pushes me into the final descent of sleep my yapping mind usually holds me back from.

He sticks me and I mumble about soreness and being his pin cushion. He tells me to shut up, that he'll get these in oral form tomorrow if I still need them.

I want to reach for a Vicodin. My hand twitches expectantly. But now that I feel better, he's back to policing me. I can wait five minutes for him to brush his teeth and go to bed.

I wish I could work up the blood to play with him. I try again to concentrate, but I can't with him sticking me in the side.

He yawns into his shoulder as he finishes the injection. He offers me the cotton ball this time. Good. Again, he's learned. I'm not his patient and I don't need him to kiss my booboo.

I nod to tell him thanks and he cleans up the medical waste. Pressing the cotton against my stinging hip, I lie down and listen to him in the kitchen.

He asks from the refrigerator if I liked the carbonation.

Yes, I tell him, and request ginger ale only this time. I can't stand much more of that green crap.

He brings the cup to the table with his water glass and bends down to kiss my gruff cheek. The second of his fingers in my hair, the nearness of him, his soft lips, his smell rising from the fake scents of the day, it's all too short and I want more but I can't—

He pulls back.

"Goodnight," I mumble in response to his goodnight.

I see him check to make sure I've got the blanket I dug out earlier, that he's done everything I'll let him do for me. He squares himself with himself and I watch him lumber down the hall.

I feel sleep settling in to the sound of him brushing his teeth. With fumbling hands I find a Vicodin and chase it with ginger ale—a significant improvement over the green crap. My fingers brush the hernia. It's popped out again. I'll reduce it later.

The kid's symptoms, progression, labs, films, the whine of the heart monitor, the smell of freshly-leaked blood and approaching death swirl when I close my eyes.

I can't connect them. I'm sucked into sleep.


	6. Obstructed

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Sorry for the cliffhanger!

* * *

**Obstructed**

Suddenly I'm awake again and I know something isn't right. Several somethings aren't right.

First, from the way the light has migrated across the walls, I know I've slept for a few hours. I didn't hear him get up and go to work.

Then, in the milliseconds I take to think he might be playing hooky, I feel retroperistalsis begin, my abdominal muscles contract, that sensation of my guts turning inside out, and I gag and swallow and hyperventilate from the surge of adrenaline.

It's my warning.

I'm on my feet, stumbling and cursing. I hope I make it.

I do and I think that if he is playing hooky, this will wake him up or draw him out if he's already awake. I had no time to swat at the door.

I notice it before I'm finished: shit. Literally. Shit. Not a lot of it, it's mostly bilious, but—

_Shit_.

No wonder I slept so long. No wonder my gut feels like its housing a ten-car pile-up and each car is on fire: it is. He's going to be such a self-righteous pain in the ass when he finds out. He'll be a worse pain in the ass than this is, and this is a _huge_ pain in the ass.

I pick myself up, sweaty and tachycardic, and I know what I have to do. _Shit_.

First I check the bedroom. I know he's gone but I check anyway. He didn't make the bed. He left in a hurry and he's mad at me, or he'd have made the bed. He could have slept late, missed his alarm, too, I suppose. I doubt he slept much with me up every fifteen minutes most of the night. I ooze pity for him.

I go to the computer next, log in to the system, and create a file for myself. Everything I know and suspect I enter there. The system prompts me five times for vitals until I enter something approximate to shut it up. I order a generous set of labs, a contrast CT, ciprofloxacin, and tag the file for emergent surgery. I print a copy to take with me in case the system eats this one. By the time I get there, _maybe_ surgery will have noticed it in their inbox.

Next I chew two Vicodin. One for neurasthenia in the leg, one for the no longer intermittent pain in my abdomen. I want another dose of ondanstron, but time is my enemy and the lab will need a stool sample to culture. I'd rather not make them journey through my gut to get it.

Instead, I find shoes and something fleecy to pull over this thin undershirt, and pocket the meds in my trench coat—I'm cold again, I know I'll be cold in the innumerable icy rooms, and though I don't care, it disguises the pajama pants. I add wallet, keys, iPod, and PSP, and force myself to swallow flat ginger ale so I won't retch as much later.

I'm glad he's not here for this. He'd only react poorly.

I pause, hating the predictability of the immediate future, and press my side again. Of course it's there. Of course it's painful and I can feel heat from the inflammation through my pajamas. Of course I can't reduce it now.

I have no other choice.

My one consolation is that I'll get the autopsy results as soon as they're available.

File in hand, I lock the door and step out into the piercing sunlight.


	7. Badger Baiting

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Glad everyone's still enjoying even if it is disgusting. It will continue to be disgusting. I hope it continues to be enjoyable. ;)

* * *

**Badger Baiting**

She—Brenda? is it Brenda? doesn't matter—slams the door and I chuckle in spite of myself. Few activities are as entertaining, challenging, and rewarding as pissing off Cuddy's head clinic nurse.

Now I sit and wait to see how smart Cuddy is.

If she comes quickly, she's not as smart as she should be. I logged in and sent her my file before I staged the coup that yielded me Exam Room Three. She's got her computer rigged like Wilson has his: different dings for different notices from the system. If she's smart, she'll take a few minutes once the nurse and the doc I booted from here have finished complaining to put my name and the consult ding together, and read the file.

But maybe I'm optimistic today.

I shake out of the trench coat, lie down on the table, and use the coat as a blanket. Any second now I expect to see icicles forming on the cabinets.

I long for another double antiemetic shot, more to keep the Vicodin in place than anything else. But she's going to want to run a stool culture and this is the only way she's getting stool without slicing me open.

Now that I have time, I palpate the carotid and measure beats against seconds. Tachycardic, I knew that. I count 124. The others I can't calculate from here and while I'm not comfortable—these tables were not made for people over 5'5", even with the flimsy slide-out extension—I'm not moving either. If I turned on my back, I could poke myself, but I'm miserable enough already and she'd only poke me again.

I wait and brace myself for the berating to come.

I hope she doesn't call Wilson first. I hope she assumes he knows.

She doesn't disappoint. She takes just long enough for me to seriously consider breaking out the PSP, and she's yelling before she's got the door closed.

"House, _what_ is going on?" she begins.

I see she brought the file. It's even in one of those fancy blue folders with the hospital's name embossed on the front.

"Have your breasts finally gotten so large that you can't read around them?" I ask.

She stares at me for a moment, the same exasperated stare Wilson gives me. (Sometimes it's a turn-on; it isn't right now.) Then she starts screeching. Something about picking up the phone and calling her first.

I roll my eyes. "The same thing would have happened if I'd called an ambulance," I tell her, "but then I'd have to pay those jerks and you'd waste an hour putting all that data in the system." I pause for effect and fold my hands in my lap. "Now, I'd like to get this fixed before it necrotizes and some surgeon botches the reattachment."

She glowers for exactly a second and a half. They all see reason eventually.

"I see you already sent this to surgery," she says wearily, as though I've done this with the express purpose of ruining her day. "You're sure it's incarcerated?"

I roll my eyes again. "No, I think it's fine."

She motions for me to move the coat and show her the problem.

"Thought you'd never ask," I say with a smirk.

She questions me about it while I sit up and move the waistband of my pajamas so she can see everything she needs to and nothing she doesn't. Her questions bore me, especially since I wrote all of this information down precisely to _avoid_ standard exam questions.

"Seriously, you can't read?" I say.

She glares at me. "Maybe I was too busy putting out the fires you started to read all of it."

"No, you weren't," I answer.

She sighs impatiently. "It's twice the size it was yesterday?"

"You _can_ read."

"Shut up, lie down, and let me see how screwed you are," she snaps.

I approve, and tell her so by obeying, though I'm fairly sure I know exactly how screwed I am. If I couldn't shove the chunk of gut back in last night when it wasn't swollen and descending into a place I really care about, she won't be able to now. She's too gentle.

"Oww," I whine.

Okay. She's not that gentle.

She glares at me again. I flinched and tensed my abdominal wall. I force myself to relax as she palpates farther down.

"You're supposed to buy me dinner first." It's a weak joke and we both know it.

She stops and meets my eyes and she's sympathetic.

I snap the waistband on her fingers before she can say anything. Another glare. Then a strange expression crosses her face and I feel a latexed-finger gently tracing a line across part of my abdomen. I push myself up to see what she's seeing. Oh. She found the bruises.

"Wilson beats me every night with my cane."

If I had a nickel for every glare she sent my way…

"That guy who was abusing my patient," I tell her, adding a question mark to the end: _remember him_?, "didn't like to be told he was a child abuser."

I slide my shirt tail down and sit up to make her move.

"Don't worry," I tell her, "if the mountains of physical evidence on the kid aren't enough to put him away, I'll tell my sad tale."

I say it with enough sarcasm to get her to glower at me again. Good. Whatever sympathy she felt should be long gone by now.

"Now, before this gets ischemic…" I hint. "Surgery just doesn't jump for me like they used to."

She snaps back to the medicine.

"I can get my own cephalosporin and draw the labs myself," I continue and grin to let her know just how great I am.

In true Cuddy fashion, she's not impressed. She never is.

She motions for me to lie down again and reaches for her stethoscope. She wants to check my bowel sounds.

I roll my eyes. "They're not there," I tell her, but I know she can't be persuaded to skip this, so I lie down.

"Think you can get me a room with a window?" I ask thoughtfully.

"Stop talking."

I roll my eyes again. I've got to stop doing that. It gets old, even to me.

She satisfies her curiosity and notes her extraordinarily commonplace findings. I sit up again while she skims my notes.

"You think you also have _Salmonella_," she says.

I throw my hands up. "Once again, your literacy astounds me."

"House—"

"I'll get you something to culture in less than five minutes," I say. "Meanwhile, the pharmacy should have the ciprofloxacin I ordered ready and waiting."

I shoo her with a hand.

"Go get me a room with a view and a surgeon who won't slice my intestine open by accident."

She insists on telling me she'll send someone to get a new set of vitals and that around here patients don't drawn their own labs, as well as other boring, inconsequential things I already know.

"Go bother Wilson when they're finished," she says dismissively with a hand on the door.

I roll my eyes. Can't help it. I also make a point of reaching for the emesis basin I placed on the counter before she came in. Hint hint, Cuddy.

Finally, she leaves and I'm alone with my tummy ache and my coat.

I reach for a Vicodin out of habit and stop myself before I begin patting pockets for the bottle. Puke first, then Vicodin.

I dig for the PSP instead and hope whoever draws the short straw hurries up. I've got a medical examiner to bother.


	8. The Mad Scientist

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

I want to express my appreciation to those of you who've been reviewing steadily. Aqua Mage, Benj, Namaste, an-angel-in-hell, Dyingwithdignity, bmax, Juliabohemian, med-anomaly, gypsy71, LastScorpion, labyrinth38, anyone I've missed—you guys are keeping me posting quickly. I really appreciate your comments and encouragement!

* * *

**The Mad Scientist**

The lab has my fluids, I'm stuffed with anti-puke meds, antibiotics, and Vicodin, and I know I look insane in pajamas and a trench coat. The medical examiner won't see me coming.

In the basement, I scan the halls and rooms I pass for any trace of my incompetent subordinates. Nothing. No one. I do spook a few radiology techs. That's good, clean fun.

The smell always comes first. Dried or drying blood. Decaying tissue. Leaking gases. Chemical preservatives. The usual scent of illness and unwashed flesh circulating upstairs, magnified by ten down here.

I notice the absence of guards. Of course. We don't know what killed the kid other than the immediate cause, and though it's violent, cardiac arrest isn't considered a violent _crime_.

The medical examiner may be the class of physician I annoy least frequently. There's a reason: they're creepy.

This one I don't know. Blonde. Ponytail. Young-ish. Suspiciously hot, even in a splatter gown and mask. (Really, they're creepy.)

From the door, looks like she's got my corpse.

"Kevin Parker?" I ask once I'm through the door.

"Elizabeth Reed," she answers, glancing once at me over the kid's chest. "Who are you?"

"The guy who couldn't save this kid's life," I say, nodding to the corpse.

I'm standing next to the table now. I scan the cavity for structural abnormalities.

"Doctor House," I add as an afterthought.

Probably something clicks in her head and the click is reflected in her eyes. I don't look for it. I don't care. They all know me, whatever it is they think they know. They meet me, and that knowledge clicks. Ohhhhh, they say.

"You look like you stepped out of _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_," she comments. "I should call security."

"You cut up dead people on a regular basis," I retort. "How do I know you're not a cannibal?" I shake a spooky chill like Bojangles for effect.

If she reacts, I don't wait to see it.

I see nothing abnormal in the chest cavity. Damn. We didn't find any structural abnormalities on any of the scans, or the echo or the angio, and there's no reason to expect to see them now. But—damn.

I glove up. She eyes me territorially over her mask.

"You haven't examined the heart," I tell her.

"I will soon," she responds, returning to her examination of the lungs. "The county wants a thorough report. That takes time. I assume you know that."

She glances at me over her mask again like she wants to slice my fingers with her scalpel. I'm only checking the heart and surrounding tissue for external abnormalities. I'm not even cutting.

Being among the dead all day must be good for patience, because she lets me look until I've seen all I can without opening the organ.

Nothing. I'm defeated. For now. I place my knuckles on the table and grill her about labs.

She lists them. Thorough. Good. But nothing's back yet. Labs take time. Not the chemistries, but cultures. I growl to myself. Time is my enemy.

I growl again. She's resumed the lungs. The problem wasn't in the lungs.

I think. I reason. Then I act.

She's got the blade size I want, but the next size up will do. I snatch it from the tray.

"Need to see the heart," I tell her. "Need to see it now."

She doesn't try to stop me. Just steps aside and records my intervention into her slowly methodical investigation. These people are _creepy_.

My hands shake. I'm excited. I know that's not why they're shaking.

I speak my findings, not to her but to the recorder she's been dictating her report to. Atria, ventricles, valves, septum, pulmonary artery, aorta, vena cavas, pulmonary veins—except for a slightly oversized aortic valve and what may be slight thinning of the left ventricular wall, it's all clean. It's textbook.

"You a pediatric specialist?" I ask.

"Yes," she answers.

I nod once. I don't see anything, but she'll measure and weigh and examine the tissue more closely than I can with my cut-and-run approach.

I relinquish the ten-blade and repeat an order she already knows, to send me the report.

But I can't leave.

I run over the initial symptoms with her, our findings, our theories, our treatments, the best explanation I have right now.

As I reiterate to her to check the deep veins for thromboses not caused by trauma, she interrupts.

"Doctor House, if you want this report, you're going to have to let me do my job."

Her rationality is frightening. This is the effect of the dead? I think I'm in love. But she's still _creepy_.

I nod and leave the table after one last sweeping glance. Nothing. I see nothing.

I discard the gloves and wash my hands. My gut hurts. And my leg. I'm dehydrating and cold. This room stinks of death.

I've got nothing. I leave the mad scientist to her work and traipse slowly toward the elevator.

I begin again with the first symptoms.


	9. Doctor Cuddy's Couch

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Thanks for the reviews! You guys are great!

This chapter was incredibly fun to write. I hope you have fun reading it. :)

* * *

**Dr. Cuddy's Couch**

I meander back to Cuddy's office. It's been a little over half an hour. They won't have called Wilson trying to reach me yet. Nothing gets done in half an hour here. Not even death.

I burst in, as is my custom, and angle toward the couch.

"Your room isn't ready yet," she says without looking up from whatever unimportant piece of paper she's writing on.

She nods at the left corner of her desk before I reach the couch.

"You got away before anyone tagged you."

There's my file and a freshly-printed bracelet. I put it on—wouldn't want to confuse the surgeons—and skim for anything new she's added. I see I've got a tee time with the scalpel-wielders at last, about three hours from now. I read her floor orders. Standard. A little messy. Boring. One important omission.

"You're not giving me anything for pain?" I ask.

"Post-op instructions," she says, still busy with that unimportant piece of paper.

"I'm talking pre-op."

She stops writing to look at me. "I imagined you'd try snorting your Vicodin before you tried anything else."

"Makes my nose itch."

We wage a two second glare war before she turns to her computer. I go back to the notes.

"I want a local."

"Talk to the anesthesiologist."

"Who won't listen unless there's a note."

She sighs. "I think the surgeon would prefer general anesthesia."

"He'll be cutting near my precious parts," I say. "What if he doesn't like me and the knife slips?"

She sighs again. "It's laparoscopic, House, you know that."

"Less risk with a local," I remind her.

"Fine," she sighs, then fixes me with a glare. "But if you mouth off and something goes wrong, it's your fault."

"Technically, no."

She narrows her eyes until they're tiny slits. "Anything else?"

I take my time reading the file, looking for the smallest thing. Because after this, I'll be bored again.

I toss the file back on her desk and turn to the couch. This thing's really starting to hurt and I don't like the way it hangs when I stand. I'm happy to lie down and start my game.

It's as though she waits until I'm well into the level before she speaks. She's evil.

"Why aren't you with Wilson?"

I detect from her tone that she's stopped writing and she's giving me her full attention. Lucky me.

"Wilson's busy," I tell her. "Got a patient. One who isn't me."

I sense that she knows. She doesn't draw out my curiosity.

"Why haven't you told him?"

"Who says I haven't?" I return.

She has no idea how hard it is to keep a bike on a dirt track and talk at the same time.

"I do," she answers. "If he knew, he would have requested the file already and he'd be busy corralling you and pestering me with questions. I haven't heard from him which means you haven't told him."

"Why should I?" I ask. "He worries. If I care about him, I don't make him worry."

"That's a _great_ plan," she says.

She's laughing at me. How did she know I just wrecked the bike?

"He'll be so thankful that you didn't tell him when he finds out."

I start the level again. I'm concentrating on the game—this conversation bores me.

"House, he's going to _kill_ you for keeping this from him. And then he'll come after me. I'm not going to make the mistake of getting between you and your partner again. Not when you're my patient. Not when it's him. He's not as easy to replace."

I spin out and crash. I sigh.

"I'll call him when I'm in the room. Then he can bring me flowers and hold my hand like a good boyfriend."

That sentence makes me want to vomit. The antiemetic's holding strong, though. Cuddy's carpet will be spared.

I don't restart the level. She'll just make me crash again. Because I know what she's thinking and what she'll ask next. But I don't know the answer.

"House." She's compassionate, caring. Gross. "Why haven't you told him?"

That's my cue to break down, confess the dark secrets of our relationship. Chicks live for this, right?

"Are you ready to be pestered?" I ask her.

This time I look over to see her face when she answers.

Stony silence. But I can see that she isn't ready to have Wilson bothering her.

"Well, I don't want to be corralled yet either."

I start the level. We've come to an end point in the conversation. She'll shut up now and—

"Nothing else is going on?"

Now I'm getting annoyed.

"Just enjoying the silence while I can," I tell her. "Or trying to."

"He's going to see the time stamp on the file and he'll ask me about it later," she says. "I'm telling you you should call him right now."

"For the record?"

"He's dangerous when he's angry."

"Duly noted."

I return to my game. Maybe now she'll shut up.

I wait.

The scratching of pen on paper.

Excellent.

I play through the level. I'm only half there with the game. Less than half. Everything that isn't my motor cortex is processing the symptoms, the progression, the history… Sometimes it has to simmer, I know, though I hate waiting for it to come to me.

Eventually I put the game down.

To my eye, that kid's heart looked normal. Right size, right color, everything I touched was the right density and elasticity. That heart didn't arrest for no reason. That heart looked healthy.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a bad diagnosis. It's too vague. No definitive etiology. And the kid could have been having panic attacks, too. Why not? Abused kid, it's common.

Nothing about that heart seemed abnormal.

I'm cogitating when someone knocks on Cuddy's door and—crap. It's him.

He sticks his head in the door, speaking already.

"Hi. I got a call about—_House_."

Yes, he's spotted me. Cleverly camouflaged in a trench coat on a paisley couch (shame, Cuddy).

"What happened?"

He's aghast. Mouth hanging open.

I look at Cuddy for help. She's ignoring us both, trying not to be here with her head ducked almost to the desk top.

"Uh, nothing," I answer stupidly. "I'm getting the hernia repaired. Waiting on a room."

I realize I'm in trouble. Crap.

I watch, wincing, as he turns red. His mouth is moving. He's trying to say too many things at once, nothing comes out.

I try to sink into the couch. I'm in so much trouble. I want to crawl under Cuddy's desk and stay there for about a week.

I wait for him to explode. To yell. He looks like he has a lot of yelling gathered up.

But he doesn't. His shoulders slump forward, the red turns to pink. He looks confused.

"You're all right?" he asks.

"More or less," I shrug.

He stands in the middle of the room looking like a deflated balloon.

"You didn't—" He stops and begins again. "You drove yourself here? Why didn't you call me?"

"Didn't want to interrupt," I say.

Now I'm wishing Cuddy really wasn't here. I don't want to have a tender moment in front of her.

He starts toward me. "House, it's not an interruption."

He reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder and—

It's Cuddy.

Looking down at me.

I blink up at her.

"Your room's ready," she says and gives me the number.

She goes back to her desk. I sit up and blink. A creeping sense of deja-vu crawls over my skin. Just like the hallucinations before the Ketamine.

I stare at my hands. I think this is real.

I fell asleep. I had a vivid dream. Now I'm awake.

I'm awake. This is real.

I'm awake and shaking. I need hydration and whatever pain meds Cuddy ordered.

I take a deep breath and gather myself before she notices and we have another conversation.

I don the coat, balancing poorly with the cane. If she sees, she doesn't say anything. Good. Anyone who offers me a wheelchair right now gets a crack in the head.

I leave without incident and totter toward the elevator.

She isn't right, but… Okay, dammit, she is right.

I'll call him when I get to the room.


	10. Understanding Pain

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

I'm glad the dream worked. I wanted it to mirror the dream in "Top Secret" more than anything else. Now here's the real Wilson. And thank you all again for the reviews. I think they do make me write faster and I sincerely appreciate your thoughts. :)

* * *

**Understanding Pain**

They make me miss Cuddy's office. By the time they're done bruising my veins and choking me with tubes, I wish I were back on her hideous couch dreaming about Wilson.

Worse than their not knowing the ass end of a nasogastric tube is the wait. I needed those pain meds _before_ they started torturing me, not afterward. I grumble and snap and threaten and invoke the name of Cuddy, but they may as well be deaf for all the good it does.

I'm waiting for the meds to arrive before I call him. Something about having a tube shoved down my nose and a gut that hurts so much I'm ready to yank my own intestines out has put me in a foul mood.

I bark at the nurse who's fiddling with the suction. Eventually he leaves saying he'll be right back with my meds. I don't believe him and tell him so.

I watch him return to the nurse's station and make notes. He can make notes later. I _need_ those meds. Most patients who hit an eight on the pain scale get faster service. It's been twenty minutes.

I stick my tongue out at him. So what if he can't see me.

Now I'm bored. I reach for the PSP and try that level again.

Just because I'm not writhing and groaning like most of the idiots here who hit an eight doesn't change the number.

But at the same time, once the meds arrive, I can't reasonably put off calling him any longer. Unreasonably, I could put it off indefinitely, but that's not me.

I beat the level before the nurse returns. Finally. I've had to endure one part of my body necrotizing already, I know what it feels like. I don't need to go through it again.

I watch him inject it.

If Cuddy were any kind of human being, she would have ordered a drip. But apparently ischemic bowel feels different to me than it does to everyone else. I'm special. My pain isn't as bad. I can get through it. It only hurts because I don't know what killed that kid. Nothing to do with oxygen deprivation at the cellular level. That doesn't hurt at all. Ask anyone else with gut rot. They'll tell you. If you can get them to stop screaming first.

He stays for a few minutes to watch for a reaction.

The only reaction he's going to see is relaxation, and it's so controlled he probably doesn't see it at all.

He leaves.

I can breathe again. Seems like it's been hours since I've drawn a real breath.

Just because I don't parade the pain, doesn't mean it isn't there.

I'm better. I can breathe. Now I'll call him.

I place the PSP next to the other important things I've brought to cure boredom and pick up the phone.

Patient phones never follow logic. They've changed the system since I was shot. I skim the instructions and enter a series of numbers that might be correct.

Someone picks up.

It's him.

He's in his office for once.

Frankly, I'm surprised.

"Hi," I say.

I sound…shy? Nervous? I'm not…

"House. Hey. What's up?"

I hear his tone change from professional to boyfriend as soon as he hears me. God, I can smell the chicken soup already.

"Not much," I answer lamely.

I clear my throat. Still not sure what I'm going to say.

"Thought I'd take your advice and get the hernia repaired." Lame, lame, lame.

"I don't recall advising that," he says, "but okay."

"You did," I tell him. "Sort of."

I hear him scoff on the other end of the line.

"It was implied," I say.

"You sound better," he tells me. "Feeling better?"

Oh, choke me with a gym sock. I imagine him tracing little hearts with a forefinger on his desk.

"Yeah."

For a second, there's this awful awkward silence. He's figuring out what I want. He knows I never call him without a reason.

"You…ah…when do you want to do the surgery?"

"Soon," I say.

I really don't want to tell him. I'm still trying to think of a way out of it.

"You should wait until you're over the food poisoning," he advises.

And in that second I hear him figure it out—a slight hesitation on his end marks the realization.

"Unless it gets worse."

A terrible, terrible pause. He knows, but he'll still ask anyway. It's who he is.

"It's not worse, is it?"

"Ah…yeah…it is…" I cringe. "But don't worry, I've got it under control."

He says some variant of _Oh God House what did you do_ but it rushes by so quickly I don't catch all of it.

"I'm okay," I tell him. "I'm getting it fixed this afternoon."

He's on his feet now, spilling papers, knocking containers of pens over, that stupid miniature Zen sand garden and the other crap his pets give him. I don't need to be there to know what's going on.

"Where are you?" he asks insistently as though I'm a hostage who's just escaped and found a pay phone to call him with my whereabouts in the few seconds I have before my captors return.

I give him the room number and cringe again.

"Why didn't you call me?"

I just dreamt that—didn't I?

I blink.

But this time he sounds more put out than he did when I dreamed this conversation.

"Because I…didn't want to worry you or interrupt you," I tell him. "I'm okay. I had it under control."

He sighs.

And in that sigh I hear how deeply disappointed he is. He's past the point of anger.

My insides twist. Crap. Disappointment is so much worse than anger.

"Cuddy has my file," I volunteer.

I try to sound cheery. Can't pull it off.

"She's probably expecting a call from you."

If I were the type to bite my fingernail, I'd bite my fingernail. This is the one where I wish he'd say something. I wish he'd yell. Anything.

He's silent.

I can't stand it. I start babbling.

I tell him what time my surgery is and who'll do it. I tell him how I woke up and how I thought it was faster for me to do everything and that it's only been about an hour and a half since I noticed the problem.

I tell him I'm sorry I didn't call earlier, and I am sorry now. I hate silence from him. (I don't tell him that.)

"You know I'm bad at this," I say. "I didn't know what to do, whether I should call you or— All I thought about was getting here and getting it fixed. I should have…paged you or something, but I didn't want to… Look, I'm sorry if you're upset. Really. I am."

I hear him sigh again. He's about to say something. At last!

"House, what are you on?"

"Morphine," I answer. "Not a lot," I'm quick to add. "Cuddy prescribed it."

He asks for the dosage. I roll my eyes—I know he can hear that through the phone as well as I can hear him pinching the bridge of his nose.

I tell him.

He falls silent again.

"Everything else is in my file," I continue. "Cuddy has—"

"Cuddy, yeah, I know."

Yep, he's pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm not high," I tell him. "I'm normal."

Oops. Why did I say that? I don't want to bring up this old argument again.

"Okay," he says.

Okay means not okay.

Crap.

Then I have an idea.

"Um, so, will I see you?" I ask.

He'll want to stop by, right? The whole point of not telling him was to avoid his excessive coddling. Because he'd bother me too much. He'd be here, bothering me. So he wants to come—right? And it's better if I invite him…because that shows…something…

I suck at this.

"Yeah," he answers. He sounds tired. "Yeah—I have a couple of things here, but—yeah."

"Okay."

And awkwardly we say goodbye and hang up. I hate phone calls.

He thinks I'm high.

I'm _not_ high.

I'm not in pain either. Well, I am, I just don't care about the pain.

I feel better. I can breathe. I just—don't want to have this argument, least of all with myself.

The room-temperature saline chills my veins. I gather the thin blanket and pull it to my shoulders.

With such immense relief comes tiredness. I remember that I haven't slept much.

I think about lifting a hand to find the remote for the television, but I'm tired and…


	11. KnowingFeeling

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Thanks as always to you kind people who review. Can't say that enough.

I hope this chapter works.

* * *

**Knowing/Feeling**

I open my eyes. He's sliding the door closed. Morphine never lets me sleep deeply.

He takes his time closing that door. He's in full medical dress, lab coat and all. He could have come straight from a biopsy or some other cancer thing.

Even if he yells at me or gives me nothing but stony silence, I— I'm…

Yes. I am glad to see him. I do want to see him.

If I went to surgery first, I would be… would I really be? I think so. I would be disappointed. Not sad. But I would have expected him to come—wanted him to come—and if he didn't, I'd miss him.

I know. I'm hopeless.

He faces me and his expression is like a mid-air collision of two planes carrying every emotion imaginable.

I straighten up and try smiling. I don't know if it works.

He's…I don't know…shoulders slumped…defeated…tired. He trudges toward me and pulls a chair up.

I don't know what to say. I wait for him to speak.

He avoids my eyes, looking at the blanket, the tray with my toys, the window (Cuddy came through), the blanket again.

I wait. Morphine doesn't help me sleep but it does make me sleepy. I'm as patient as I ever get right now.

Finally he leans forward with his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands together as if he's about to pray to me.

"Please, House," he begins, and the broken tone in his voice knives my gut. "If anything like this ever happens again, please, call me first."

"I'm sorry," I tell him. I said that phrase a lot with Stacy. I mean it more now. "I didn't think of it. I should have."

His eyes tell me he's bone weary. I am sorry. So sorry. I hate being sorry, but I am. I hate what I've done to him that's made him so tired.

"You think of everything," he says.

His tone is flat. Dead.

"You really didn't think to call me?" he asks. "Or you didn't _want_ to call me."

He pauses, but I can tell he has more to say. Oh God. I think he's gonna cry. Shit.

"Because you didn't want me to…make a fuss."

He glances from blanket to window to floor to my hands to blanket.

I'm dirt.

I'm lower than dirt.

Dirt would be a significant improvement on what I am.

"Yeah," I admit. "I didn't want you to make a fuss."

Oh God. I'm being honest. Shit.

"I thought you would…and I didn't think I could stand it." Oh God. Shut up, shut up. "Thought I might snap at you."

He laughs hollowly.

"You probably would."

Oh shit. I really screwed this up. I don't know what to do. How to fix it or if it's really broken or…anything. I don't know anything about this.

He takes one of those deep breaths that's supposed to settle him down but he can't fill his lungs before something forces the air out. Oh crap. Please don't cry. I can't handle that. Oh crap.

"I…ah…" he begins.

He scratches his forehead, stares at the blanket. Swallows.

"I was trying—yesterday—all day—to give you space," he says.

"I noticed," I tell him.

I try to sound reassuring but I'm pretty sure I fail. I search for the thing I'm supposed to say.

"I appreciated it."

I did. That's no lie. I could tell he was making an effort. But I thought he was mad at me and that was why.

He swallows again. "I know you don't—like—me checking you out all the time—"

He realizes what he's said and half his lip smiles. "Not _that _kind of checking you out," he clarifies, glancing at me in an unamused fashion, as though I'd automatically assumed he meant something else. I half-smile too.

"Checking up on you. Asking if you're okay. I know you don't like it." He sighs very deeply, like he's been holding that in for a while. "I tried not to do that yesterday."

I nod. "You did a good job."

That sounds so lame. I'm so lame.

He meets my eyes. Crap. Way too many emotions. I'm screwed.

"So…you noticed that…but you still thought I'd fuss over you if you called me."

I can't look away from him. My heart's pounding. My hands tingle. I'm not steady.

"Would you have?"

It's the only thing I can think of to say. The way it comes out, I may as well be a scared little boy. My voice nearly cracks. This is too much for me.

And he laughs, just a little, just a laughed-breath, and he smiles and looks down and relaxes and God, maybe I'll be okay now too.

"Probably," he answers.

He blows another laugh-breath.

I feel better. I can breathe again. I take advantage and draw a full breath and let it out. I needed that. I thought I was in so much trouble…

Now I know it's my turn to say something meaningful. I owe him that. I want to tell him something to make him breathe like I can breathe now.

"I didn't want you to make a fuss," I tell him, "and I was going to tell you. I just thought that if I got everything set up first and you didn't have to do anything, that you wouldn't worry as much."

I'm making no sense, not even to myself. I search for the nugget of meaning.

"I didn't want to make you worry."

There. That sounds right. And it's true. He worries over me too much. It makes him old. I don't want to make him old.

The way he looks at me, it's just like he did in the dream.

"I'm going to worry, House," he says matter-of-factly. "You can't stop that from happening."

Then he stops. I see him thinking. I don't know what he's thinking. Not a clue.

"But I understand that you were trying to protect me from that," he says. "If 'protect' is the right word. I don't know." I see him struggle. "But I appreciate the intention."

He sniffs a laugh. What's funny?

"What?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

But he's still smiling and laughing to himself. Something's funny. I want to make him tell me, but I also don't want to disturb the peace.

He reaches for my hand. I let him take it.

"I'm glad you're okay," he says.

I meet his eyes and I have to turn mine away. I can't see that look. It makes me uncomfortable. I enjoy his hand in mine instead.

Somehow, yesterday, all the quiet…I guess I missed him. He was trying so hard not to be there that he succeeded.

I'm maudlin. I'm slush. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I'm not in trouble. We're okay. No fighting.

His hand in mine feels good and I'll stop at the feeling.

I'm immensely relieved. I invoke a deity I don't trust. But oh God I am relieved.

Seriously. Shoot me now.

I open my eyes. He's smiling like we just had a baby together.

Okay, I'm not _that_ relieved.

He lets my hand go. It's warm now, not like my other hand which is still cold from the saline.

"Well," he says, taking me in from a different angle now, the medical angle, I can see it, "you look much better than yesterday."

He hooks a finger around the line.

"Saline," he says.

"God's salty tears," I answer.

I'm so lame. So lame.

He straightens up in the chair and regards me with a curiosity that isn't medical. It's…personal. That word seems right.

"Can I see it?" he asks.

I shrug with my face and push the blanket down. I haven't seen it in a while either. I want to check for changes in color that would indicate necrosis.

I sweep the folds of the gown aside.

He hisses. "Oww."

No shit. I sit up on my elbows to get a better look. It's about two shades darker than the bright red it was in the clinic, but still only a medium red. I don't see any dark red or purple. The nasogastric suctioning has reduced its size. Good.

I'm relieved. Immensely relieved. I hadn't been thinking about it necrotizing. Not on purpose, but… Yeah, okay, I had been not thinking about it on purpose.

"Not too bad," he says.

I shake my head. No, not too bad at all.

"Should go smoothly," he says.

I nod. I want to snap at him for stating the obvious, but I think I needed to hear it. (Shoot me. Really.)

He nods at the tray. "I see you came prepared."

I follow his eye line to my toys.

"Yeah."

"Anything else you need or want?" he asks.

I'm tempted to say something sarcastic to break up the emotions in the room.

"No," I tell him like a docile little lamb.

What have I become?

"Okay," he says and stands. He hesitates. "I've got appointments this afternoon, but if you want…"

I shake my head. "I'm all right," I tell him.

He leans in to kiss my cheek. "Okay. I'll come see you after the surgery." He kisses me again.

I reach for his shoulder and let my hand slide down his arm. He takes it and gives it a squeeze and lets it go. Damn me but I love him.

I watch him leave and settle back and breathe again.

It's not comfortable, tachycardia and fever and the tube down my throat sucking out the contents of my bowel. I'm hydrated again and that lessens the misery, but my gut aches and the obstructed intestine has descended into my jewels making them ache too.

I want to turn on my side and curl up against the radiating ache. My back tells me it's time to turn. But these beds are too small.

I close my eyes instead and breathe and think about lowering my heart rate. When he was here, all of this was secondary to his presence. My hand misses his.

I'm strangely hollow. I don't know what to do.

I breathe deep and think about him. How I'm going to sleep next to him when I'm out of here. How I'm going to enjoy the smell of him sleeping and the sound of his steady breathing.

I remember his warm, sleeping body.

I'm okay.


	12. Hunting the Mystery

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

* * *

**Hunting the Mystery**

I don't know I've fallen asleep until the nurse wakes me for a vitals check. He hangs the pre-op cephalosporin and tells me I have visitors. I notice the plural. My idiot minions better have something good for me.

He lets them in.

They shuffle past him in white coats they usually don't deserve. I notice one has a blue folder. The preliminary report. I make the 'gimme' motion and ignore the one that asks if I'm okay.

"Talk to me," I tell them as I open the report.

"The preliminary findings are inconclusive," the one who's least afraid of me begins.

Inconclusive for our end of the puzzle, he means. We know what killed the kid as well as the medical examiner does.

I grind my teeth as I glance through final chemistries and available cultures.

No structural abnormalities, they tell me, except for the two I found. Waiting on some tissue cultures to come back. Test after test is negative.

One deep vein thrombosis. The m.e. found the clot in the lungs.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. They came up with it too.

Their theory is that the bronchitis for which the kid was originally admitted triggered postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which brought him to me, and two weeks in bed for bronchitis led to the development of the clot that hit the heart. The thrombosis? Trauma from years of abuse. Easy.

A few months under me and that's what they come up with, I tell them.

It's consistent with the medical examiner's preliminary findings, they tell me.

It fits but I don't like it.

They bore me. I wave them out of the room. I keep the report as they file out with mopey faces.

I read the report cover to cover.

Nothing.

I read it again.

Nothing.

I turn the television on. Soaps help me catch new ideas, make connections.

The melodramatic music, the too-serious acting, the plot twists. I follow along. A sea of differentials laps just beneath the soapy film.

Nothing.

The door slides open. An orderly with a wheelchair. Time for the CT.

The antibiotic and saline bags ride in my lap.

If the aortic valve had been undersized, aortic valve stenosis could have… but the valve was oversized.

The m.e. found two clots in the posterior tibial artery. Kid complained of tingling in his foot Saturday night, I remember. The morons didn't get an imaging study. Wrote it off as just another instance of general tingling in the extremities. We had that one on the board already.

Just the right foot. Just tingling. No pain. If I'd paid more attention or gone to see the kid and noticed the signs of healed bruises on his legs…

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is no mystery. Deep vein thrombosis infracting the heart is no mystery.

But there _is _a mystery.

The CT bores me. I'm waiting to see this thing.

When it's over, I shake the orderly and wheel myself into the tech room to have a look.

Some of the signs of strangulation are apparent. The bowel wall has thickened slightly but I see only a small amount of portal venous gas and no pneumatosis. Best, the CT eliminates all other differentials. No abscesses, no signs of other inflammation. It's a healthy bowel with a three centimeter strangulating portion, that's all.

There's not enough room to turn around, so I wheel backward to get out.

Down the hall, the morgue tempts me. I caught the only two anomalies in the report. Surely others are there. But I don't know what to look for now.

Instead, I wheel to the elevator and back to the room. My gut hurts. I'm tired and sweaty when I arrive.

I stare at the wall—there _must_ be something I've missed—until the nurse brings me a clean gown and another pain shot.

I don't need help changing. I don't need help moving a few feet to the bed.

He nods and closes the blinds, then lets himself out.

The level of compliance surprises me. I wonder who I have to thank for that. I won't thank whoever it is of course but I wonder nonetheless.

I stare at my lean and bony body with the angry red stripe centering from the left. I notice it's gotten smaller. It's almost back to its normal size.

My leg never changes. I don't bother looking at it.

But at the rest of me, I look and try to see what he sees.

I remember how attractive it used to be. Athletic, not bony. Lean with muscle, not fat. It looked good.

Now, I don't see anything I'd want to have sex with.

I cover it up so I don't have to look at it. What could he possibly like?

Morphine unclenches my gut. Again, only now do I notice that I can breathe. I was busy earlier. It wasn't that bad.

I hang the saline and antibiotic drips and reattach each.

I'm comfortable and drifting toward a nap when a pair of orderlies arrives with a gurney.

Time to plug up the leak in my gut wall. Yippee.

I close my eyes for this ride and search for the mystery. It eludes me.

When I hear the chatter of surgical nurses, I request the antiemetic combo that's worked for me all day. Ondanstron they have in abundance here, but the mention of metoclopramide draws strange expressions.

The anesthesiologist comes over to ask if I'm sure I want local anesthesia instead of general anesthesia.

I confirm. He leaves. Morphine and the mystery mellow me in his presence. I don't snap once.

I listen to the nurses gossip while they attach leads to my chest and shave the entry point for the laparoscope.

I wait for my name to come up in their talk, but it doesn't. They make me lose the gown and take me to the O.R. I slide over to the table, and they leave.

I'm always the subject of gossip. I'm hurt that I wasn't mentioned and search for the reason.

I realize with horror I've been a little tame recently. I guess that's the gossip now: _Wilson's tamed him, can you imagine that?_

I resolve to be less tame in the future.

The room's lights go down and the bright lamp lights come up. Various surgical personnel introduce themselves.

Am I _sure_ I just want a local?

Yes, dammit, I'm sure.

Well, if I feel nervous or uncomfortable at any time during the procedure…

I tune the voice out and the cardiac monitor in. Still tachy.

The team talks in low tones. I feel the correct part of my body go numb.

I wish I had the PSP.

Low light on my face, general calm and quiet, the mixture of morphine and metoclopramide. I'm sleepy.

This procedure is boring, even as I half-watch the surgeon's screen. I wait for her to get to the inflamed bowel. She examines the two flattened sections protruding from the wall. I see no evidence of necrosis.

I hear her say the same.

Now she'll stuff it back inside and repair the hole.

I wait until it's all in its original packaging again and I've seen no necrosis. I tell myself I'll close my eyes once I determine whether she's a decent spackler.

She's doing a textbook job. Routine. Safe. Boring.

I close my eyes and return to the mystery hunt.


	13. Secrets

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Thanks for the reviews! We should be getting down to the last couple of chapters. I don't think I've ever written a fic this long in such a short amount of time. Thanks for helping me get it done. :)

* * *

**Secrets**

I doze through post-op observation, answering their orientation questions when they ask. I still don't hear my name in the snatches of gossip I pick up there.

The mystery slips through my hands. Again and again I think I have it, but the aortic valve is oversized and the two clots in the leg make so much sense.

The grunts take me back to the room and put me in bed. I settle in, close my eyes, and wait for the vitals check.

He's there sitting next to me when I open my eyes again.

The weightedness of my body tells me I've slept an hour at least.

His eyes are trained on Sports Center.

The sleeves of his shirt are rolled loosely to his elbows and his tie hangs past the first button of his collar. He's worked a full day. He's unbelievably sexy.

Faintly, I can smell the mix of his aftershave and deodorant that is his presence in this room. He'll be the death of me. Whatever that means.

When I move, he smiles at me. He wasn't watching Sports Center at all, even if his eyes shift back to the television once he's smiled.

Coy.

I smile too.

I yawn and stretch and wonder what time it is. Hernia repair is usually an out-patient procedure.

Sure, it isn't when the contents start to strangulate and I know as well as he or anyone else with a medical degree does what would keep me here overnight: fever, inability to produce urine or flatus, vomiting, excess pain. My control over all of these is minimal at best.

"Have you talked to Cuddy?" I ask him.

He glances at me from the TV. "No. Should I have?"

I shake my head and yawn. "No."

I ask him for the time. Not quite three yet. He's knocked off a few hours early. Good. Still time for me to get out of here. I want to sleep next to him tonight when the rest of the artificial smells fade and the good smell of him sleeping emerges.

My gut's cramping like it did yesterday. Residual food poisoning. I'm thrilled.

He says nothing as I get up and drag the I.V. stand with me to the bathroom.

This is much better than gimping down the hall. A room with a view and a toilet. Cuddy has redeemed herself in the eyes of the lord. But if she doesn't let me go today, the lord shall taketh back what he hath giveth.

I don't need a stethoscope to know how awesome my bowel sounds are. Pee is clear yellow, poop is as good as can be expected.

He's got his nose wrinkled when I gimp back to the bed.

"Surgery was a success," I tell him.

"I heard," he says wryly.

Ha ha.

I peel the tape off of my nose and motion for him to help. He finds gloves and we pull the tube out. Much better. He tosses it and his gloves, and complains about having to wash his hands in the bathroom I've just skunked.

"You planned this, didn't you?" he accuses.

I smirk.

He groans loudly about the smell and flicks water from his hands at me. I show him how long my middle finger is.

"You wish," he grunts and sits next to me again.

We stare at Sports Center. I dig for the mystery. I dig and dig and dig.

Then Cuddy's at the door in her doctor get-up. I'm tempted to crack about playing doctor with her, but he'd smack me if I did.

"House?" she says incredulously, flipping pages in my file.

"Doctor Uday reported no lewd behavior, no unnecessary comments, no disruption of her work. She says you actually fell asleep."

She raises an eyebrow at Wilson. "Did the body snatchers invade?"

Wilson raises an eyebrow too, this time at me.

I shrug. They don't need to know about the mystery.

"Can't get any sleep on the floor," I say. "You know how it is."

Cuddy rolls her eyes. "Only you."

I smirk. "Only me."

She rolls her eyes again. "Okay, let's have a look."

I let her look and question.

Does the incision hurt?

No. Anesthetic hasn't worn off yet.

How's the gut pain.

Intermittent and crampy, like I've got, I don't know, some sort of gastroenteritis.

Bowel sounds are good.

I look at Wilson, who shakes his head with disgust. Yeah. We know.

Number 1?

Yep.

Number 2?

I look at Wilson again and grin.

She sees I've disabused myself of the nasogastric tube.

Wow, she can see!

I ask for a beverage or some applesauce or whatever test food in vogue is now.

Her eyebrow goes up again. "You want to go home today," she observes.

"Your powers of observation never cease to amaze," I say.

She shrugs. "If your electrolytes look good, you keep something down, and your fever's gone, I don't see why you can't."

"Have I told you lately that I love you?"

Wilson glares.

"Totally platonic, honey," I tell him. To Cuddy, I mouth, 'Love your boobs.'

She rolls those eyes again and tells me she'll send in the vampires and the vending machine.

I wink at her as she leaves.

Wilson glowers.

I wink at him too.

He can't help it. A smile cracks his façade.

I grab the PSP and boot it. No telling how long the support staff will take.

He must have the same evil gene Cuddy does, because he waits until I'm into the level before he speaks.

"So you were a good boy on the table," he says.

"No," I tell him, busy hitting the dirt ramps with the right amount of throttle, "I was very naughty, but I begged her to cover it up in the report. You know how women are with the baby blues."

I take my eyes off the screen just long enough to bat them.

He sniffs. "Anything I should know about?" he asks lightly.

Suddenly I feel compelled to tell him. He's a good doctor. He was there for most of the differential while the kid was still alive. Maybe he'd see something I can't.

I pull the directional control all the way back. I know I can land a double back flip on this course—

I crash. Damn.

"No," I tell him.

He doesn't trust my answer from the look on his face, but he shifts his attention back to Sports Center.

I start the level again.

I can find this mystery and solve it. I know I can.


	14. The Incredible Sulk

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

* * *

**The Incredible Sulk**

I'm halfway through a cup of applesauce when the Terrible Trio shows up again. They spot Wilson and two immediately become uncomfortable.

The one who's least bothered by our relationship speaks.

"We were right."

Another hands me the final report. The three of them stand there like children with their hands out for a piece of candy.

"What do you want, a medal?" I grouch. "Go heal the sick."

They slink away.

I put the report on the tray and begin reading, but not before I take up the applesauce. This warm, sour puree is my ticket out of here. And I no longer trust the report.

This report contains as little interesting material as the last. Except for a few cultures, which even I don't doubt will be negative, it's complete. The theory stands.

I close it and sigh. I don't like this theory.

Wilson's trying so hard not to snatch the file I think he'll strain something.

Well. I've got nothing to lose in telling him.

"Autopsy's back on the kid," I say.

I nod to the file and he grabs it.

"Nothing interesting."

I eat the last foul spoonful of applesauce and try a shot from the three point line. Miss.

I tell him the theory.

"Deep vein thrombosis? Caused by what?" he asks as he skims and flips pages.

"Trauma," I answer.

He takes a moment to finish a cursory read.

"So the kid's father killed him," he says.

"Looks like it," I answer. "Boring."

He studies me. He opens the report again.

"And you were down there this morning," he states, "looking at the heart. Cutting the heart. You found something."

"Irrelevant to the diagnosis," I grumble.

He studies me again. I begin to chafe under his scrutiny. He's going to figure it out. Damn.

And then he does.

"You don't think this is correct," he says, "or complete, or whatever your word for it is. You think something else was wrong with that kid. But you don't know what it is."

I stare out the window. Maybe I won't go home today. Maybe my stomach's starting to hurt.

"That's why you behaved during surgery," he says, as though he's figured out the greatest mystery of them all. "You were working. Looking for a different diagnosis."

I stare at the sky outside the window and the buildings very far off in the distance. I won't acknowledge him.

He sighs. "Sometimes it is this simple," he says.

I watch a cirrus cloud move quickly through the space of the window. Must be windy today.

"And sometimes you need a mystery," he says softly. "Why this kid?"

He knows better than to ask me questions I can't answer.

"House? Why—"

The phlebotomist saves the day. Shuts him up, anyway.

I dutifully offer her my arm.

His question is valid. That's why I hate it.

I grunt when she sticks me and notice her for the first time. Young. She should repeat the part of phlebotomy school where they learn not to hurt people with sharp objects.

I should grouse. I don't. I know he notices.

She leaves. He's figured out I don't have an answer for him. He's smart enough to back off.

I lay back and close my eyes. Everything's quiet except the baseball game on television.

I have to pee again, and crap more bacteria. My gut contains more air than anything else. I can feel the applesauce squirming through the large intestine. Cramps like a son of a bitch.

A dull ache has begun where the anesthesia's wearing off, too. Cuddy ordered one dose of morphine post-op should I request it, then back to the Vicodin I already have. If I ask for morphine, I risk staying overnight. Gotta control that pain, huh, Cuddy?

As it is, I do nothing. I don't want to move.


	15. Human, All Too Human

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

House is all over the place in this chapter. I hope it works. Thanks as usual for the reviews!

* * *

**Human, All Too Human**

Eventually I do have to get up. My body insists.

He doesn't look at me when I return to bed. Whether he's contrite or stubborn, I don't care.

The morphine is no longer holding. I realize I have to get up again unless I want to ask him to do it for me, and I don't, so I get up and open the pitiful armoire where my coat hangs.

I take the pills back to bed and make sure he sees that I'm only taking one. He's read my file. He knows I have the option to request more morphine. He understands why I'm only taking one and why I let him see me take it.

It must be four o'clock because the nurse arrives to check my vitals. I sit quietly and obey.

My BP is good. I'm no longer tachycardic. But the thermometer reads 99.8.

"Take it again," I demand.

He does. I sense Wilson holding his breath until the thing beeps.

99.7. Damn.

He asks if I need anything. I request 1500 milligrams attapulgite and 125 milligrams simethicone to ease the passage of solids, liquids, and gasses through my gut, and since the saline's just run out, a clear carbonated beverage. He scribbles notes in my file and says he'll be back soon.

Whatever Wilson's thinking, he keeps it to himself. Good. I don't need any more of his psychoanalysis.

Sometimes I need a mystery. Yeah. I remember that argument. Very similar to 'you don't always get them right, House,' the one they both gave me with the paraplegic what's-his-name whose case I _did _get right, whose outcome they hid from me. Wouldn't want me to get high on solving the mystery, no, that would be detrimental to my health. Just let the guy die instead, or continue a life in misery. Teach me a little humility. And when the damn ketamine wears off, oh, it's just psychological because you always have to be right, House. Sure. That's all it was.

Simple fact: something about this case isn't right. I know it. I'll find out what it is.

He can stay on his side with the cancer pets. No mystery there. Imaging studies to find the things and measure them, baseline labs, chemo or radiation or both, surgery, rinse and repeat. No uncertainty. No wondering if he did the right thing, or if something he didn't do would have saved a life. No wonder he sleeps so well.

If I'd gone to see the kid on Saturday…

I can't change what I did or didn't do. But if there's something I can't see, I can look for it. I can find it. Too late now to fix it, but I'll know next time.

But—it makes so damn much sense, the theory. I know it makes sense. I know it's plausible. But it feels wrong.

The nurse shows up with my meds and a soda.

I toss them back quickly. Not a moment too soon.

I want nothing else, need nothing else. The nurse leaves.

I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

Why's he have to be such a bastard?

Why couldn't he have left it alone? We could've had a nice evening, maybe a little fun.

Now I just want to watch TV alone. Because, damn him, now he's got me thinking there is no mystery.

Now I have nothing but an aching gut and a bum leg. And half the time when I'm with him, even though he's so sexy and I want to, need to so badly, I can't—

Because I'm older. Because my leg hurts. Because of the Vicodin. Because I need a mystery.

And he's so good about it, it's nauseating. If I don't fix this soon, he'll start looking elsewhere.

From the corner of my eye, he doesn't look duplicitous. But I know him.

Why'd he have to ruin it? We could've had such a relaxing evening.

I curse myself and my weakness. I still want to go home with him tonight, despite what he said. The idea of him alone making his dinner, washing the dishes, sleeping by himself—no. I want to be there. I don't want to be stuck here chewing over some tasteless mystery.

Cuddy's at the door. I'm prepared to fight her. I don't want the night nurse bugging me for vitals at 4 a.m. when I can listen to him sleep next to me.

"Your potassium's low," she tells me.

I hold a hand out for the lab results.

"Still got food poisoning," I remind her.

I take in the numbers. It's low, but not dangerously so.

"I'll eat a banana," I tell her.

Wilson intercepts the sheet when I try to hand it back. He shrugs.

"We have bananas at home," he says. Good boy.

She doesn't look convinced, but takes the results back without argument.

"You still have a fever, too," she says.

"Barely," I counter. "It's residual. Another hour and it's gone."

"Elevated white count," she points out.

"Also residual, also barely elevated," I argue. "I'm fine, Cuddy."

She looks to Wilson. He agrees with me.

"What about pain?" she asks.

"Negligible and manageable," I answer.

I shake the bottle of Vicodin. She looks to Wilson for an explanation. He tells her I took one, that I seem fine to him.

She fixes him with the questioning look she usually reserves for me. I can see her thoughts: is he hiding something so he can take House home tonight? And then the inevitable conclusion: well, if he wants him, he can have him.

"Are you in a position to take the morning off?" she asks him.

He thinks. "No," he answers slowly, "but give me an hour and I will be."

She turns back to me. "And you'll listen to him?"

I scowl.

"House."

"All right," I mumble.

She wants to give me another order, but since this thing with Wilson happened, the boundaries between us have changed. She doesn't get to give orders any longer. (And neither does he.)

She doesn't like this. Wants to find some reason to keep me here. _I've_ got issues about my patients?

Finally, she mutters about expediting the discharge and turns from us.

Wilson watches her leave with humor in his eyes.

He looks to me. "Sure about this?" he asks.

Surreptitiously, I gage whether he's asking me if I'm sure or himself if he's sure. It's the former.

I glare at him.

He holds his hands up in defense. "Okay, stupid question."

He stands to go. "I'll be back in an hour," he says, "maybe less."

He doesn't take my hand or lean in to kiss me. He knows he pushed me. Even if he's redeemed himself somewhat by supporting me in front of Cuddy, by genuinely wanting me home with him tonight—he still pushed too far.

Then he's gone too and I'm alone. The Vicodin's kicked in and the other meds are starting to work, too.

I could follow him to his office, but I'd just as soon not see him for a little while. I relax. Didn't realize I was so tense.

I should get up and put my clothes on. Be ready to go when he gets back. But I'm comfortable. The last dose of morphine hasn't fully metabolized yet. It boosts the Vicodin. I'm very comfortable.

I close my eyes.

Immediately his words return.

I open my eyes.

Why did he have to say that?

What purpose does it serve?

Puts me in my place? Reminds me I'm not always right? That I need to invent something to feel make myself right?

I know that already, the kid croaked. And if I'd gone to see him Saturday rather than—well, who knows. Maybe nothing would have changed.

He's always after me to visit the patient. To add the human touch. He knows I don't define 'human' the way he does, and still he insists.

I ball my fists—because I know he's right. I hate that he's right about this.

I know I screwed up. I know I could've saved this kid from a mundane death. I don't need him to be self-righteous, You need a mystery like you need Vicodin. To get high.

No. Because I'm bored without it.

Because it's a distraction, he'd insist.

So what if it is? I save people. Where's the wrong in saving people.

Why this kid?

Hell, why not? Why not any kid? A life is a life is a life.

But this time I screwed up. Yeah. _I know_.

And it really doesn't matter if I'm searching for something that doesn't exist because I _need_ it. I don't matter. What matters is that I don't screw up again. Whether I'm right now or wrong or just a screw-up—the kid's still dead.

All because daddy wailed on junior for years and none of us caught it soon enough.

Maybe this kid's lucky. Maybe he got the easy way out.

I close my eyes again.

Wilson can't hurt me. This dead kid can't hurt me.

I'm rock. I'm stone. Nothing can hurt me.


	16. Present Perfect

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

So this is it. It should be true to the show in that House avoids or denies his issues and we cut without any real resolution. I'm a little sad it's over. I enjoyed writing in this voice. It was like taking a pleasant vacation. I hope you enjoyed reading. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. You should have awesome fic karma. Cheers.

* * *

**Present Perfect**

I know I'm dreaming but I can't wake up. I know why it's this dream. I hate this dream. I can't stop it from unfolding before me.

I'm a kid. A teenager. In Japan. I have to tell my father about the climbing accident.

I know it wasn't my fault the same as I know he won't see it that way.

I know he'll ask why we didn't go to the base hospital the same as I know it wasn't my decision to make.

I know he'll make me dig a hole as long and tall as I am even as I know we don't have a yard to dig in on this base.

I know he never lifted a finger to hurt me and I haven't feared his punishments since I was twelve but my leg burns and I'm terrified.

I piss myself waiting for him to get home and have to change my pants.

Mom isn't around. I have to do this alone.

I have to be a man. I have to take everything like a man.

I stumble over the words. I'm four years old and sniveling. He's an angry giant in a uniform with a high and tight.

My voice cracks, breaks, squeaks. I can't explain. I can't wake up.

If he'd only forgive me. Say something. Anything. But he won't speak. Just stands, large and quiet.

My belly aches. I'm afraid he'll hit me there again. Then he'll make me drink a quart of milk and run till I puke.

I did what I thought was best, I tell him. I'm crying. I'm a sniveling four year old, afraid I'll lose dinner. I'm eight, afraid of mummies and desert night cold.

He never touches me. I wish he would. I'm afraid he will. My leg burns as I run in the heat, stop to dry heave, run again.

I bury myself alive in Germany, 5'1" deep, 5'1" long, 2'5" wide. I sleep here tonight.

I did what I thought was right. My gut aches.

I hyperventilate in school. I'm seven. My hands and feet tingle and numb. My heart pounds. I'm scared I'll throw up in front of everyone. I can't stop the tears. I don't know why I'm crying. The other kids laugh, punch me in the gut later in the bathroom, call me a pussy. I tell no one.

He still hasn't said anything. I did what I thought was right. He looms over me. He never speaks any more, just puts the container of milk on the table if it's hot, looks toward the shovel if it's cold.

I'm doing this alone. I'm stoic. I'm a man. I can't afford not to be.

I can't wake up.

I know it's not real but I run in terror, wish I had something in me to puke. At least I'll sleep inside tonight.

My terror is real.

Suddenly I hear him calling me from far away.

House. House. House.

I'm awake. Breathing fast, sweat-soaked. Wilson was calling me. I'm in my pajamas on the hospital bed. My forearm's taped where the nurse removed the cannula.

I fell asleep waiting for him.

He asks me if I'm all right.

I breathe slowly and nod. "Bad dream."

He knows I have them. He has them too. He finds something else to look at.

"Ready to go?" he asks.

"Yeah."

The sweat's drying already. I feel better. I hate that dream.

I get up and gesture to let him know I'm making one last bathroom stop.

I rub my tired face. My gut's better. Cramping less.

I have a few minutes in the bathroom to let the dream sensation wear off.

I know I had that dream because of the kid's case and the abusive father. It happens with abuse cases. I should have seen it coming.

I know what he'd say if I told him about the dream. He'd tell me I'm looking for a mystery in the case because I don't want this kid to have died only because daddy hit him. That I'd find such a death ignoble and without meaning.

No. I'd find such a death boring. Abuse cases are boring.

Maybe he'd tell me I only find them boring because of my past. If he knew.

Again, no. They're just boring: nothing infectious, nothing to diagnose except a bad case of asshole-itis.

So what if I don't want this case to have been boring?

I'm tired of running around in psychoanalytic circles.

All of his cases are boring.

I hate that dream. It was never as bad as the dream makes it seem.

I need a Vicodin.

He's waiting with my coat around his arm and my cane when I'm done.

"Celebrity Wrestling's on tonight," he tells me as I put the coat on.

We watch that show together. The light tone in his voice—he's backed off entirely. Surrendered. Good. I like winning.

I check to make sure I've got everything—keys, wallet, PSP, iPod, phone—and follow him out of the room.

The dream is nothing. Only a dream.

"Guess we're taking your car," I say.

I find myself saying these inane, boring things around him now.

"We can take yours if you want," he responds.

Really, I'd forgotten all the mundane conversations that comprise a relationship. We have them all the time. What's for dinner? What's on TV? What do you want to do tonight? What do _you_ want to do tonight? Movie? Stay in? Go out? It's as though if we don't make plans, the world will end.

"Your car's fine," I tell him.

"Okay. We can pick yours up tomorrow," he says.

Verily the world would end if we did not know when we'd pick up my car.

"Sure."

He asks if I want to stop on the way home for attapulgite and simethicone.

"Sure."

When he returns to the car and tosses the pharmacy bag in my lap, I notice he bought a thermometer as well.

"She's not going to chop your balls off if you ignore her just this once," I grumble.

"We didn't have one," he deflects. "We should."

"If I'd known you wanted to play doctor…" I leer and grab his crotch to see his reaction.

He grunts in surprise.

"Don't start something you can't finish," he mumbles.

He's easy to torment. I smile and increase the pressure.

He groans my name. "Trying to drive," he whines.

"Trying to annoy you," I whine back.

Once he's tented his khakis I take my hand back. I can't do more than torment him today. We both know it.

He glares at me.

I'm ready for a Vicodin and some quality time with the couch once we're up the steps and in the door.

I get my coat off and then it's my turn to grunt in surprise when he wraps his arms around my chest.

"You stink. You need a shower, Stinky."

He's spooned himself against me and he's kissing the back of my neck.

I missed this. Four days of nothing. Whatever he just called me, he gets away with it.

I relax. What he's doing…I want to stand here and let him keep doing it.

"House?"

"Mmm?"

I'm leaning against him so hard that if he moves I'll land on my ass. If he wants to talk he's gonna have to quit doing that to my neck.

"You scared the hell out of me. Get well and stay that way for a long time."

I grunt something. He can have what he whatever he wants.

He pilots me to the couch and backs off. He stands and watches while I flop down. Bastard. He knows I left my knees on the other side of the couch.

I look at him and he's smirking. Pure evil. That's what he is.

I threaten to do some outrageous thing to him that isn't done except in pornos and by extremely flexible people.

He bends down to kiss me lightly on the lips and then on my neck where the stubble stops. I want to curl up against him and go to sleep. Right now.

But he goes away. Probably hungry.

Fine. I can wait a few hours. And tomorrow he can sleep late with me. On rare occasions such as this, I think Cuddy is a genius.

I swallow a Vicodin for the ache at the incision site and chase it with doses of the over-the-counter stuff to ease my gut.

I don't care about the case any more. It's over. I'll get a new one tomorrow or the next day, whenever I stop crapping long enough to go back to work.

He brings ginger ale and half a banana. I make a face, but sit up so he can sit next to me.

He's got a beer and a bowl of pretzels. He's a real bastard.

"Oh, almost forgot," he says and reaches in his pocket.

He tosses me a pill bottle. Ciprofloxacin.

"Culture came back?" I ask.

"_Salmonella_," he nods, stuffing pretzels in himself.

I grunt and nibble at the banana. I'm not hungry but I know it'll get me back to normal.

My normal. I miss my normal. It includes everything to the left of me: beer, pretzels, him.

I grumble about how unfair it is that he gets beer while I'm stuck with fizzy nothing.

I don't listen to what he grumbles back. He has a beer. He doesn't get to grumble.

He's sitting next to me, his thigh warm against mine, laughing with his mouth full at some sports thing on television I'm not paying attention to.

I like this present tense.

I put my legs up and fake a yawn to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

He slips an arm under my back and leans in.

I smile, just a little, just to myself.

Everything is okay.

END


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